Copyright Statement

Abstract

Many tools, techniques and devices have been developed to support people traversing their environment. In this paper we report findings from a series of realistic outdoor experiments conducted to understand the comparative, task-specific strengths and limitations of a GPS-enabled navigation map and egocentric navigation systems. These tasks included both macro- and micro-navigation aspects. Our findings suggest that while GPS-enabled navigation maps are preferred for moving over larger distances (macro-navigation), their inability to support micro navigation resulted in a notable decrease in the ability of users to locate their desired points of interest. In contrast to this the egocentric navigation system performs well in micro-navigation but relatively weaker in macro- navigation. We conclude that a better system would allow users to switch between map-based and egocentric views in order to use a GPS system for the macro-navigation, and an egocentric system for micro-navigation.